Читать книгу Roper's Row - Warwick Deeping - Страница 34

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On the morning of the great day Mary Hazzard was awakened by Christopher knocking at her door.

“I’ve made you a cup of tea, Mother.”

He came in, wearing an overcoat over his nightshirt, for Mary made her son’s nightshirts, and as yet no Hazzard had worn pyjamas.

“How’s the day, Kit?”

“Sun shining. Slept well?”

“Oh, pretty well. One can be just a little bit excited even at my age, my dear.”

He kissed her and left her to drink her tea, and when she had emptied the cup she put it aside on a chair, and lay and meditated. She was much and strangely aware of herself as an old woman in a young woman’s bed, her head upon the pillow that was pressed by the head of Ruth Avery, an obscure little girl who worked in a city office. And the peculiar part of it was that Mary could not forget that black dress hanging in the cupboard like the very shadow of the girl herself.

But she did not wish to feel too fey on such a day as this, and she rose and, going to the window, lifted the edge of the blind and looked out. She saw the red flowers across the way, and remembered that it was autumn and that winter was near. Also she remembered the voice of that lugubriously gay fellow, and that women come and women go. And with a kind of consenting and grave sadness she poured out water into Ruth’s basin, and washed.